>> john borling is a highly decorated air force major general serve worldwide in high-level command. fighter pilot graduated from the air force academy at the national war college and the

white house fellow. during the vietnam war he was shot down by ground fire answers the injured and captured and spent six and half years as a pow. kim after a long career in the force he has positions in civic business organizations and also the president and ceo of chicago united way and a founder and chair sos america. with the church organization advocating military service for america's young men. and is in high demand across the nation. to talk about his book "taps on the walls" poems from the hanoi hilton" give a welcome to major general borling. [applause] >> that was a pretty good

introduction. are you wondering if this guy will be any good or not. [laughter] thank you for coming. you had a flight line those of the patriot writers of washington to make sure we don't forget. as is a new tradition for town hall please stand as the present the colors the knobs of top turner a late.

>> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america into the republic for which it stands , one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. retire the colors thank you very much. i was commenting on the introduction and was gracious enough when people do the recitation of credentials all of the verbal thunderbolts tend to leave me speechless almost. [laughter] tonight to we will explore together subjects are reverting to me and if any

are of importance to you. i will start with the white house we have people from the crowd and that also have some guys that i flew with in the crowd. and a classmate from the academy and have not seen mike for a while and others and stories they want to tell but i will not let them including people from school. it is fun to be back in a crowd of those who know you and also intimidating. i prefer strangers but starting with washington attributable to bob dole he had a falling out with his speech writer.

and had a major speech shortly thereafter and walked to the podium and told the crowd tonight he would be pleased to offer solutions to the staggering economy. he will offer considerations how to have affordable and effective in a universal health care to talk refurbishing the military equipment to create the operational context to project on a worldwide basis indefinitely and have you would care racism and bring us together with shared values. and he kept turning the pages and you are familiar,

okay you sob your on your own. i am not tonight with those to know me but i will divide you up because this will be interactive. we will do it airforce like and this is a flight over there. the flight you are cerebral. [laughter] we will split down the middle what you think we will call you? charlie flight. you have to be quicker. maybe you are presbyterian or unitarian.

do space their bad singers? because they always read one stand ahead to see if they agree. [laughter] mark was a great stand-up guy on the south side of chicago and he said free association can be abusive stay with me as we go down the to be chary of the mind may not have anything to do with the book my wife is hung in there 50 years of this time. [applause] i am glad to recognize my contributions for that. [laughter] that is not for me. if you like naked trees and

frozen ground it is perfect but she said talk about the book so we will get there. flight and if they are ready and they are some real role you are intensely feeling so you have to come up with questions that are reflected in delta flight or a dog fight most of the characters are over here something about a hard right or stage left but in any event, the delta flight that you count on when elsa and charlie and the bravo let you down. i stumbled when i thought

about what i want to talk about tonight because doing this book "taps on the walls" was not something we thought we would never do. the genesis we will go into but the difficulty of course, is i have to go back to a time that was an unhappy time. i built huge walls to make sure i do not have to go back to be a professional pow. i do a lot of speaking their rarely dealt down into that subject as they should. actually the vice president of the senior class is your. how're you?

she is more wounded and was so taken up that i came to town south she ran down four of caffeinated coffee or whatever it is in managed to take a tumble. but she sent her husband to the dinner last night. of having to go down is a chore than on the other hand, we had conversations to sense that period of the nation's conflict of how the nation continues to advance or decline. that is bad shorthand have

you read thomas cahill? how the irish saved civilization in the suggestion that is more than economic pluses and minuses and more than warfare and it is the individual that springs for word'' that has created the pathway in truce mr. did is of the two that only the human wants to do die and plato was right if only said dead's of the war we were talking on the

subject just thinking about the nature of war, patton suggested consider how every other human endeavor shrinks to insignificance. god i love it was the finishing line. but at least not to own up a little bit with a throw of combat intermixes in the unlikeliest do that has a repellent factor once you're there you don't leave it to and his lifelong for rival

compaq budget -- just to finish up the john keegan died recently. of the historian of the last 75 years the most effective and insightful and keegan was quick to suggest anybody to have done their hair to talk about such things is in the category of a bullfrog or any other thing trying to achieve lofty circumstance

to get it down to the operational level and in the end if i don't leave the peace of soul up here and will not have done my job. or your questions will not have done their job. let what people's nation's go to war and it is meant to be instructional for younger people in the crowd and i suggest we do so because of interest perceived or real and do so because of fear which is a powerful motivator and also hate.

and the start political reality is in use of three to put the nation into the extended period of conflict and hope to have any public support yet it is the tough words that make it very tough for nations to do which is to declare. inflation risk treasury should do so with the law other than the war powers act that should be able to respond on a presidential level. with a macro consideration of the invention of warfare let me talk about "taps on the walls."

i flew 94 combat missions by quit counting to volunteer for a second tour. myrna was back in the states and i said i could fly another 100 missions and she said you have to do that. this goes back to my young men are so untrustworthy with the prosecution of conflict. you need no longer lens but you do trust your men and women and they go there. of was a first lieutenant to upgrade and i was very proud of that.

and then i had the prospect of more to come. then in december 65 i had of three month old baby and they went to the south side of chicago and she would be seven and a half when i walked back in the door. the daughter after the war is more like her mother. that is the genes. north of hanoi no rescue possible if you went down and we were hit by ground fire and got out going through 1,000 feet which means you are dead in the cockpit.

if we had gotten a swing i think we would have been dead that we rolled down along steep hill to the bottom with a broken back and ribs and sprains rolling down the hill at a couple hundred miles per hour is like a mexican jumping bean. it is surprising and was not injured workers. with the metric of the room with the jungle and the trees i never would have made it. i rolled into a log and did something very brave and i passed out. out of fear and shocked that

after the half mile hill was at of agricultural circumstance trucks were running up and down so i got a staff because they could not walk i got my gun out and they said say would break my leg. click the plan was to hijack the truck and take me to the coast then i would steal a boat and go south then be safe and a couple of days. the option was to surrender.

knight roach by the side of the road so i got in the middle of the road. and i hijacked a truck. full of north vietnamese troops. [laughter] and a management decision i have reviewed a time or to. [laughter] i think john wayne could have pulled off. anyone else know that story? un to a movie and john when ms. bennett, but i said he will be hammered. the indians would get him she said no. i said i will bet you dollars of sure enough he

went down and then barely makes it and reach into my pocket and said he said i cannot take it i had seen the movie before. [laughter] i said so had i but i cannot believe you would do it again. [laughter] i am not sure i would have done anything different i am not good at parables' but they stripped me nude and i had a ring on my dog tags that michael gave me that he wore in world war ii called does get me home ring. only the four that had this dental metals one of them

was the dentist is only the four guys got out of the airplane is the buddy was killed in the seventh mission. of four guys were captured and spent 22 months and a prison camp and came home. so they gave me their ring so there i am laying new id in the road. anybody want to see that? [laughter] i still had my boots on. but they ripped off the dog tags i said that is the did get me shot down ring.

i never saw again. after the war i asked dick to get me this ring that was made by that navigator it has the officers crest. i don't know where the of the three are. there was a time going back to the of motif "taps on the walls" we were communicating we were alone or isolation much of the time. after four years conditions change that is slightly larger groups the geneva convention restore respected. you could make the general case after late 6970 they hit the camp trying to liberate some of us but it

was the intelligence failure but brave men went in there and put themselves a risk but conditions started to improve. that is a gross statement and for some it never did up until the end. joe, would you agree? like the upward slope. >> thi things got better slope. >> things got better after 69. >> exactly. that is when i got very ill so if not for a better diet and i would not be standing here tonight. but this tap coating that is in the book is still fascinating one guy moved in

next door. i said i.m. john borling who are you? he said pop kern. he was really old, a 57 or 58. hard to believe. then he tapped hello dick and i said john he said no dick borrowing i was with you in world war ii he has lived with my uncle and was a two-time loser. there now passing in the last big reunion will be in day where the reprise of the nixon a welcome home party will take place.

the accounting is what have we done to pay back overtime the gratitude we feel to the nation? we took a vow we would continue to march to try to do something with our lives that would enable better days ahead. organization or reports but just the individual circumstances and we will look forward how people will share their stories. but i should comment after the party 1973, nixon opened the whole white house even the private residential section. open the door and fruits of the loom and the lincoln

bedroom, interesting thing thing, nine months after the party, about 50 children were born, up one of the room was my daughter. [laughter] details to your imagination. the other aspect when i was there as a fellow, the escher made, and it was a wonderful party because nobody stole anything. they have a problem at official functions where that aids out there diplomatically insuring making sure nobody takes off with the dolly madison silver. but in the end yearly years were really hard very brutal

times they have to make time and allies you had an uncertain grace that a concept that there was no bridge to cross so this drive to return with honor even though you never saw your buddy but you talked to them through the wall and having a classical education from the university of chicago although on a drive by basis -- that is supposed to be funny. [laughter] i had a year and a half of college indicted by a liberal arts i do think they are more important than the

math and science binge they will find themselves on the profile to go do that but to a functioning democracy plan needs to a people who were schooled of the great thought patterns a merged over thousands of years and you get that with liberal arts. also fascinated with literature and poetry and writing schoolboy refers to her so i have some appreciation for that. it was one of the ways i could fill the unforgiving minute to with the essence of the human condition. i could create. the greeks said what makes up a good man and his sense of justice, a temperance or restraint, the request for

wisdom and courage. not a battlefield but to do the right thing in life. said greeks were well short so i added to have a developed sense of humor to find something that in fact, have a face based circumstance and had maybe a quest that goes on forever you may need to have appreciation of things fettered great then new book also the essence of human condition. i wanted to beat us a jazz pianist. i was playing jesus loves me

[laughter] then the bass and drums kickstand. the blind in the front row heckled so badly i never played publicly again. i'm very the blind. [laughter] -- i married the blind. i still like to tincal -- not tinkle. tinker on the piano. [laughter] in the last element is to love. i could lead to larger small groups but there was genuine love for the organization and when you do that you get

a lot of leeway in the mistakes you make in the failures that will come your way and the guys will give you some leeway if they thank you really care about them or have a sense of what they are about. tiny to create to stay alive to return with honor we really with their heads held high and were beaten to where we had to bend and we've bent and try to give them as little as we could then we would come back and cry about it and tap on the walls and say i had to say i

regret if i hurt the people that on the greater scheme and nothing but meant us and everything fifth met weaver not as strong as tough as they had to be in the words were do the best you can. don't give them anything for nothing. henry shared what we created. one i speak enough languages to get in trouble but not much more, there were serious about learning languages and people were building houses and people were composing things in their mind but i just wanted

have legacy for with myrna in case i didn't make it. there's a heavy fighting section tend the dark and bitter pow stuff, holidays, a christmas , something that would be poignant they would say thank you very much rearranges suicide pact and then along epic poem going 5260 pages to the deals with the societal stuff to offer observation it is in an elizabethan sonnet of fashion and using quatrains using 8 feet and you could get inside of it just like a

photograph you know, if you like it or not then then you get a source of light and it would be in here and you would find that. ceo cousy's the the burden is light but there is of war to see than just level one. i cannot see the clock. i will read some stuff out of here and talking with this much more important. then we take an excerpt from each section. it is not in any special order other than there is a lot that is new all of those

poems that were memorized but there is a new introduction and john mccain gave me overly generous words and i wrote the standard about my wife but then i did not think it was worth the darn. i changed it over bringing the book's foreword i agree team from their pritzker military library to there in the business of telling the stories and experience of the citizen soldier. the president has invested enormous resources and this is the first print so i am very honored also corporate

sponsors but the news inspired me. first and always to my wife myrna and these words a sunset lover wedded to your don, i to shine and depend upon your life and love to carry on. thinks, honey. then things to our daughters to serve their country in special growing up ways and dad says thanks for that. so when you are thrown into the slammer you can talk to the guy next door. in the first part parochialism -- elizabethan sonnet that talks about one aid on a flight and will

give you the guts then you can make your own judgments. golden talon stirred the eastern sky as the cascading light with first flight thrills and who attends miss vs one they may marvel from the vantage point* on earth but ms. so much at of the skies domain. but i am not of the ears and. from one had altitude i greet the day with the engine song in trails etched on the morning blew and abandon urging me along.

it is here the first flight judged best of all. for the dawn lovers it is the delta to. [laughter] -- altitude and. this is a dark and bitter stuff sonnet 4543 with the tax code that would be sonnet for us it starts the world without comment within our weathered walls and useless windows months and years run quickly down the halls but the empty days are hard.

until you get to the rhyming couplet at the end it says i am told that steel is formed and forged by heavy bloats if only men were steel, but then, who knows? the is part of the dark and bitter stuff at christmas of expected the of christmas poem they were designed to rip our hearts out to that is the normal holiday feeling. [laughter] but i thought we would have more fun to start a flight to win jack frost's starts to warm the hearts and when

ranger fly you could buy a purple evergreen it is all a part of christmas. snow tires crunch and window shopping and the friendly rush through downtown wonderland with carols are sung and it is all part of christmas. it talks about christmas in chicago having dinner going home and then it talks about being alone to have a closet full of presence and has been to who is missing and not knowing if he is a life and she talks to me at those times the memory is bag if

only he were here then need to right to this christmas night and feel in your a lonely wife, half-life and this, a part of christmas. she writes a ls, a part of chri. she writes a letter with you this, a part of christmas. she writes a letter with you can read and i said is the crying part. summer there is no, a beacon glow, a window like to little spark that calls us home tonight to the world away to return someday to be a part of christmas. one and i tell people you can cry in this book he should read the front in the back and read a poem called "taps on the walls" i wrote it for you and me and all of

us you can laugh in here. in fact, like al gore invented the internet. [laughter] i invented rap just down south with the. pair there were tubers' looking for something to some by no woodpecker's pecking on california red words -- redwood's it has the same syncopation and rhyme scheme he war fighter pilot boots he was liquor and weathered and outbound and dollars gauges queen -- green talking however thing happens to the airplane he keeps promising the board he would give up things like

smoking, drinking, gambling, living primate -- loving it eat pie and that is the vernacular but then he hits the brakes it is wonderful weather on the way to the moon and says it canceled a clearance i think we're downwind of the remarks i wanted to make. the book is a piece of my soul imperfect but in on a statement that helps me and my fellows get through tough time so now it is

appropriate to to stiffen the spine damage you roam around to get inside the head of john borling with a cohort of men who were nathalie there -- and not only there in southeast asia with the cohort that have the memory and the reality of experiencing the only perfect place. this guy. there is another poem about how a guy grows old and he was a private but then you await the banshee cry.

his heart is still in the sky. it is time for the banshee decry so you should go up to the microphone and gives me the questions you're brave enough to ask. if not i will ask you questions. thank you for your attention. you are most gracious. [applause] modest enthusiasm we can work on that later and i did have some high kicking cheerleaders please go to the microphone because we're filming best documentary to

captivate the 2:00 in the morning audience. [laughter] >> islanders in the army in vietnam. >> thank you. >> pay brought to us the of burn victims for i have a question about resilience. i saw guys who would be dead. that is it. they would never walk again, their wives will be them then i thought others nothing could kill them and the spirit was so strong and how to rebuild resilience and courage? >> said is a great question. if i come away with an

impression from fort lewis lewis, the number of men that came in with halting steps and the bacon and looked and the nature of our medical treatment is so adept at saving people that we find ourselves living with for seoul's frankly that are mentally or physically injured in previous conflicts would have died. with a resilience factor, it is very individual thing but it comes to three principal

characteristics. if you had a good growing up experience family, church, school, frie nds, step one. the standards are your own and your exact higher standards from within the any other comments save one. the small unit organization you belong to military, office pool, but in the military take care of your buddy the assault, flight, a squadron, fox will. you get allegiance there in men and women walk into horatius fire just like the civil war. they would rather die van

not to support their buddy even in the face of bloody orders which abound in warfare. the third reason, and noble goals. if somehow if things are bigger than yourself and you have a commitment and use that as a staff to leave on and it is a beacon to serve as the country is a big thing. but we're still missing something. we have got is so comfortable, we need a resurgence of the citizens soldier. take note of a web site sos

america.borg that means the yen and between 17 and 26 and young women who may choose to volunteer but the man would have to pick a year in platoons of 30's to augment all of the services to have of bunch left over for civilian task is to have armored divisions to fight forest fires every year. what a stupid thing to do what about a couple hundred thousand to move overnight if you want to guard the border it is affordable. look at sos america we have legislation in congress three times now we start to

build again we need to build a national base this is good for the nation to make better has been father citizens and the national polling is so supportive. people in the child bearing years it is 50% correlation it is okay. over 50 it is 80% with the cold war itself, the young man 17 through 26 they have to volunteer, what do they have to say? we will do the test. what do the young men think? shouted out.

they are against a. the young men what to do four things bridal need to spell them out. [laughter] now take the men between the age of 20 and 26. for it or against it? with a focus group you would not be. they are for its. they say this would make me better because the mix the age group, geography, socio-econ omic and educational levels and race the geographies certainly they're all and a platoon with surgeons and

the older boys of the number of boys did uses the 18 year-old is different than 23 with a maturity. charlie flight? what about the young ladies ages 17 through 20 about giving the choice away? let me see your hands. i am glad you're not the focus group. [laughter] imagine a little girl with bones in her nose and she says taken yesterday and make men out of them. that was done in hyde park

the head people off the street and the question we ask the same question what did the women over 20 think? for it or against it? the reality is they said don't you dare take this course flash off the ranch. [laughter] biology is talking but it goes back to resilience. i gave a germanic answer i am sorry i went to long. rehabing fun? is a okay? >> why the men? >> them and are the problem. >> please repeat the question.

>> why not draft the women? the men are the problem in the society. everybody knows that. the cohort goes from one point* 5 million of debt 3 million per year and the affordability of the program is suspect i could make a case of 20 billion you get for your $50 billion return but i do not have the absorption capacity to absorber 3 million we have the ama they would do pro bono then they go to the military system.

in the conditions of which they live, this is a weak argument but they live if -- live in rougher conditions and when you mix the sexes we could not keep them segregated then you mix the sexes. [laughter] that is the reason. but if we had to do it and that is what they came up with, it would be good for the resiliency of the nation. any of their nation has this? lafayette. south africa. israel. switzerland. norway.

denmark. german ages did away with there's france does not want it back. the french don't care as long as they pronounce it correctly. [laughter] they have that show on grammar and pronunciation. and other european countries fear germans argue it is for the civilization. . .

so i thank is just one of your questions and what was the question? >> not allowed to talk to. >> the talk of you have roommate and in truth the semi-isolation or isolation blasted except when they would come through and purges for four or five five years as josetta and then we got into larger groups. in fact some things that approximated more humane privileges. we got a few books. we got something for diversion of time but it never approximated and letter writing for which you are talking about my wife wrote religiously and i never got a letter for five years. a few of the guys that have public persona exploited if you will or pictures taken of those guys were able to write letters. and in my case one of the letter

writers only had six lines. and he wrote in one of his letters tell her that i miss her and i love her. this guy was in california. it was darryl. in the military it only took six months to figure that out, you know? [laughter] so the short answer and then toward the end we all got to write six letters but that would read the last 18 months or two years. this is anticipatory of the war and that doesn't -- what i'm trying to do is be factual and not make value judgments. i was back in 2002 with a white house fellow delegations in a book i say we lost the war but we won the war too. i sat down at the end of the delegation went out in the hall

and spoken french and he knew me well and in we walked into this briefing room where about an hours worth of questions went back and forth. he was holding veterans from the photo op. it was the anniversary and when the question got tough he would pick up my hand and pat my hand and i put a light in the book and said he never really combat you feel differently about the enemy. and yet mom you find out we won the war too. how many have been back to vietnam? you have been to vietnam? is an amazing country? a beautiful country and the people are beautiful. the kids are more literate in english some suggest that our kids in the american culture is swept through. it's still a communist country but once you get that taste of freedom boy it's hard to get it

out of the pallet. am i about out of time around the? one more question. i will hang around if anybody wants to chat about things. besides the bar is bars going to be open isn't it? go ahead and ask your question. >> thank you general. i would like to say thanks for your time tonight and for creating what you did in the circumstances and for coming and sharing that with us. [applause] >> thank you. i am one of many, so i wish the lights were not so garish because it's so many. >> at the beginning of the night you asked the question why did we go to war? and you listed interests, fear and hate but you spoke so much of love tonight and i'm wondering is there a place for

love in motivating a country or people to go to war? >> probably loved the idea or the over fixation with the idea that love is such an empowering emotion and it's not all sweetness and light. it can be rough around the edges but i have a hard time creating the constructs probably because i'm not intellectually sharp enough. i'm not the brightest lightbulb on the porch. i can't figure out why a country would love somebody also much that they'd want to go kill them because kirk lemay summed up the essence of warfare as well as anybody in that is if we as a people wish to prevail over time and beat history and not go to some extended decline notwithstanding all of of our resources and our great neighbors in the pacific and atlantic ocean not to remember and that is that when you go to war the purpose is to kill people and you kill enough of

enough of them and they quit fighting. in fact i can make the

i went with general chain and i had execution responsibilities. what worries me about nuclear weapons is that we are approaching -- we can be of policies are carried out where we would make an operational case for the use of nuclear force makes sense. when you drive down to certain levels you make the world safer from nuclear wars. i don't think nuclear wars as horribly dangerous as everyone sees in the world and it would really be a kick. that would set back whole portions of conflicts into barren desolate wastelands so there was never any constructs to use nuclear weapons. there was a plan and i wrote in the book, 1966 to use force, air

force force and at such a level around-the-clock that everything that hidta north vietnam and the lemay thing back to the stone age with the total infrastructure. there were targets we couldn't hit. i understand even as late as 1972 we finally had to hit and linebacker that caused the -- which reload resulted in the release of my colleagues. that was the christmas bombing of 1972 were they to b-50s and took them downtown. took them down to hanoi. some predicted losses associated with it. we could have done that and we can do that if we have robust airpower in the first thing you need is you need to have air supremacy or air superiority and no american soldier has ever been killed by an enemy since world war ii.

we are perilously thin with force structure now and i worry about that in the future. yes sir in the back. see we need to fish of the questions. do you want to take one more question? >> you guys can cut out the tape and anybody needs to leave you can just get out of here. >> actually if you would like to take questions will you what you are signing that might be easier for staff. see we will take one more in the back. >> you could take one more. she's got the hook. >> thank you for taking my question. you mentioned that we could end the war faster or effectively by changing the strategy and superiority with airpower. >> i would go further than that. we could win wars and we have with just airpower. >> what are your thoughts on the military-industrial complex's influence on postponing or prolonging wars?

>> hello, i don't know. you can make a case either side. if you do the thing that the paranoids over here are are the paranoids or after so there you can go back to eisenhower and sure there is this ebb and flow. i'll tell you what i do favor being a national security policy might have an expert in the room in nelson don national security or health care policy or any of those policies we are talking about, if we demand it, demand it at the public policy constructs of our nation with the three or four things. they would be understandable. they would be affordable. they would be executable in terms of the desired consequence and desired outcomes had a fair shot of happening and lastly that everyone that had significant spending associated with it would have a sunset clause. i think we would be money ahead in all domains, not just in the

military industrial world. if we could do one thing in the military-industrial world to address your problem that you have posed it would be to do away with the favre. do you know what that is? at the federal acquisition regulation. they are so screwed up to that is why you get your 10,000-dollar toilet seats. you really don't let to deal with it we have created because of the age of our country we have heaped procedure in process on top of it until it's so opaque nobody and stanza. i used to be able to order things in the air force supply system. if i needed a pencil or bottled water i could go down and order make a requisition and sure enough we would get a bottle of water. i came out one morning and the other two squadrons were facing us. it was the 27th in the 71st original squadrons of world war

i. the two squadrons, the other commands are standing out there scratching their heads because they have three pallets worth of heavy i ate seasoned oak, timbers and they are looking at them, and i said well i see -- yearwood has arrived. and the problem was that you couldn't turn it back in and you know this, without having your account debited so you had to pay for it in and if you turned it in for it again. which is the way the supply system was working in those days and i have no idea how it's working today. they had an order and they couldn't turn it and so you know what happened to it? it disappeared. there was a lot of sawdust around but it disappeared. you guys have been great. the idea is to have a little fun

with these things. i will leave you with one piece of humor. i will leave you with both a serious and that not the not so serious thing. after 30 days when i was drug around their they took me to a place where i could sit against the wall and let the water trip on me. it was the first time i had water. i am laying there and i can still feel the water today. i looked up and there was a team at this level here you had to have to be where it was to see it. there was writing on the beam and so rhetorically asked what is it? it was in english and feeling pretty bad. i'm looking up there and it said, smile, you you were on candid camera. [laughter]

i think tonight, hope by being candid with my remarks and you guys can be equally or more candidates we continue to pursue the evening here. thanks again so very much. [applause] we have allowed a human rights nightmare to occur on our watch. in the years since dr. king's death a fast new system of racial and social control has emerged from the ashes of slavery and jim crow. a system of mass incarceration that no doubt has doc or king turning in his grave today. the mass incarceration of poor people of color in the united states is tantamount to a new

caste like system one that shuttles are young people from decrepit underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons. it is a system that overwhelmingly poor people of color and type permanent second-class status nearly as effectively as earlier systems of racial and social control once did. it is in my view the moral equivalent of jim crow. from the 12th annual national book festival on the national mall in washington d.c., bob woodward presents his book "the price of pol